Today is the 22nd birthday of my oldest grandchild, Nicholas. I miss flying out and spending time with the California branch. He and I texted back and forth today.

More books in the mail yesterday.

My copy of Susan Howe’s Singularities reminded me that next time I need to check and make sure the book is unmarked. This book is marked up in places.

Since Howe likes to mix it up on the page, extra marks from previous readers make it more difficult to decipher. Sheesh. The other books were in much better condition.

Talking to my therapist today I realized that all my reading about Native Americans are interior preparation for my next compositional project. The copy of The Art of Tradition that came in the mail yesterday is pristine. One thing I like about this book and the research is that it was way ahead of its time. The authors understood Native American traditions and expressions as a work in progress. This went against the grain of anthropologists and their ilk. It was so contrary that though it was finished in 1955, it is only recently available. It seems to be much clearer and helpful to think about Natives as real people with a living practice not one stuck in some idealized and misunderstood past.

The antinomian controversy, 1636-1638: A documentary history edited by David Hall was in excellent condition although obviously an older book. The original flyleaf is pasted inside the front cover. It has a good explanation of this book:

“This volume brings together the core documents in the Antinomian Controversy, the theological-turned-political disputation of 1636-1638 that shook Puritan Massachusetts to its roots, led to the defeat of one governor an the election of another, affected the relations between England and New England for years, determined the shape of Puritanism for the next century, and established Anne Hutchinson’s popular reputation as a martyr in the cause of intellectual freedom.”

I have already read extensively in the library copy. I find the transcripts of Hutchinson’s trial are riveting. I can picture all these intimidating white leaders grilling Hutchinson. Her replies are a model of coherence and confidence.

Elizabeth brought a new book with her on Wednesday, Alice Neel: People Come First. I had never head of Neel but Elizabeth helped me understand her genius. Yesterday morning we talked about Elizabeth’s art class and Alice Neel. I love to chat about stuff like this.

The book was issued as a catalog to a show at the Met last year. The paintings in it are beautiful and startling.

Elizabeth brought the book to use with her class. Cool beans!

I continue to bounce around different styles of music. What I used to call classical music seems to have taken a huge step out of the spotlight. Major newspapers don’t necessarily have people on the beat of that kind of music so much any more. My guess is that for so long academic music dominated the music beats that now people like the NYT cultural critic, Wesley Morris, have only pop music on their horizon. This was the guy who wrote the music chapter of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (the book) and did the 1619 podcast episode on the same subject.

I read about half of his chapter before returning to reading straight through. I suspect that this collection of essays is very uneven.

Nichole Hannah Jones is who created the original project and then is credited as having “created” the book version. She is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and teacher. But I found her essay which is the first one a weird blend of personal anecdote and sweeping assertions. I hasten to say that I am very supportive of the idea of broadening the historical discussion to include stuff that has been omitted by white historians. However I did notice that Jones’ footnotes in this essay were often to newspaper articles. Her citations disappointed me in that they did not point me to new sources to consider. But I will read the entire work eventually.

But to get back to the weirdness of thinking about music styles.

Jean Baudrillard’s Selectedd Writings came in the mail today. Though I picked up on Baudrillard from Gerald Vizenor’s Fugitive Poses, his (Baudrillard’s) ideas on commodification of society quickly made me think of my own weird love of commercial music AND other kinds of music. Part of my struggle with commercial music is that I believe that it’s primary purpose is probably to get itself consumed and this often is the basis of its design. This makes it sometimes feel dishonest to me and consequently not very attractive to me who loves music.

Maybe this is the inevitable bigotry of old age, but when I examine commercial music of my own past though I know that the musicians I admire like the Beatles and James Brown and on and on were definitely in it for the money the music does not feel fundamentally dishonest to me. I just use my own built-in bullshit gauge.

When I am considering music that is new to me, I can tell whether I like it or not. And that is the biggest question. Music I like seems to include music that is many different styles. I think sometimes that I fail to connect to music because I am most interested in how it sounds. But commercial music sometimes seems to be a sort of celebrity thing where what is being sold is a persona not necessarily a sound.